


The Prettiest Sight in this Fine, Pretty World (Is the Privileged Class Enjoying Its Privileges)

by forsythialight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, One Shot, ben is the prince, influenced by 40s movies, rey and ben but screwball style, rey is all about the money, rey is the pauper, sort of sugar daddy vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23789440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsythialight/pseuds/forsythialight
Summary: When Rey is found hiding in a coat room after a horrendous date, she gets an offer she can't refuse. A 1940s, classic Hollywood-inspired Rey and Ben one-shot.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 121





	The Prettiest Sight in this Fine, Pretty World (Is the Privileged Class Enjoying Its Privileges)

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the first Star Wars fanfic I've written but the first one to make it through editing and actually find its way to this site. 
> 
> I've been watching a lot of classic movies during isolation, especially screwball romantic comedies from the 1940s, and I couldn't get the idea of Ben and Rey bantering in a coat room out of my head. This was the result. 
> 
> Title comes from a line in The Philadelphia Story (1940). Great movie.

The date was the pits. 

Last time she ever let her roommate, Rose, set her up. 

The man—if he could be called that—was pasty, rude, and forward. And in that order. 

So Rey told Armitage she wanted the chance to powder her nose, and then, she skipped into the coat check room. 

She was hoping to slide in past the coat check girl so she could just grab her own and wouldn’t have to spare the money for a tip. But no such luck, the girl noticed her. 

“Hello?” the girl said, as Rey shifted through the coats. 

“Oh, yes, hello,” Rey said. “Thought I’d just do it myself. I’m that kind of girl.” 

That she was. An orphan for as long as she could remember who now worked as a secretary to a secretary. 

“You’re really not supposed to be in here,” the coat check girl said. 

“Listen, from one woman to another, there’s the world’s most dreadful man out there who is going to start looking for me in—” Rey peered down at her cheap watch. “In about ten seconds, I’d say.” 

The coat check girl considered her. Then, she sighed. 

“Give me his coat. Is it this one here?” She folded it over her arms. “You stay here, and I’ll tell him you came up front and had to leave on account of being so sick you could barely stand.” 

“Oh, you’re a gem! His name’s Armitage. Lay it on real thick so he thinks I’m in the family way, won’t you?” 

“Aren’t you worried about your reputation?” 

“I’m not important enough to have one,” Rey said, matter-of-factly. 

“Well, alright then. I’ll make it sound as dreadful as I can,” the girl said. She took the coat and stood back in the entrance way, just the side of her head visible from Rey's vantage point in between the hangers. 

“Excuse me,” Rey heard her say. “Are you Armitage?” 

A haughty voice answered, “Yes, and you are?” 

“Just the coat check girl, but your date passed through here a couple of minutes ago. She had to leave. Something not right with her stomach.” 

“Oh,” Armitage said. He actually sounded disappointed. For a second. “Well, what about you? Do you have to stay with the coats all night?” 

Rey stuffed the sleeve of her coat in her mouth to stop from gagging. And now she could hear the coat check girl actually flirting back. Well, someone else’s trash…

She stayed there quietly while Armitage invited the girl over to the bar. Once their footsteps carried away, she pulled her coat down. Time to make her escape. 

She pushed headfirst into someone. A tall someone. 

It was a male someone, too. Dark hair, expensive clothes, funny ears. 

“Hello,” he said. 

“Hello,” she managed with as much dignity as possible. 

“Coat check girl?” he asked. Then, he looked down at her. “Or hiding from a bad date?” 

“The latter,” she said. “But I can act as the former if you need a hand. I’m afraid it’s my fault the real one is preoccupied.” 

“That’d be swell,” he said, holding out his slip of paper. “Number 45.” 

“Number 45,” Rey said, shifting through the hangers again. “Here you go...Say, this is a nice coat. Perhaps, you want to take what you’d tip the regular coat check girl and double it, seeing as I’m just the stand-in.”

“I’m not so sure about that. You could say I’m paying more for amateur service,” the man said. 

Rey pouted, sticking out her bottom lip. “Double it, and I won’t tell anyone that you stepped out early.” 

“How do you know I’m stepping out early?” 

“Men like you don’t come here alone,” she answered. 

“I see your point,” he said, pulling out cash from his pocket and taking the coat from her hands. “Well, here you go.” 

Rey counted the cash and folded it up carefully. It was enough to buy her lunch for a week. 

“Thank you, and good night,” she said. 

The man didn’t leave. “You’re a bit of a mercenary, aren’t you?” 

Rey stiffened. “Well, until I have enough money so it can be in service of me, I must be in service of money.” 

“How’d you like to make triple that tip by pretending to be my date for the evening?” the man asked. Rey was ready to snort but based on his expression she deemed the offer serious. 

“How would your real one feel about that?” 

“No, it’s not like that. I’m here with my parents. They think I’m going steady with a girl from Long Island who couldn’t make it here tonight because of the train.” 

“Ah, clever of you.” Rey considered it. “And the evening stops at dinner?” 

“Of course,” the man said, sounding almost insulted. 

“And then you’ll go find another imaginary girl from Long Island, and I’ll spend your money out on the town, and we’ll never have to hear from each other again?” 

“Sounds like a deal,” he said. 

“Shake on it?” Rey extended her hand. 

His hand engulfed hers. Big hands on a large man. 

He hung up his jacket then and hers too. 

“They’re seated far in the back,” he said, as he ushered her through the restaurant. Rey peeked and saw Armitage and the coat check girl, sitting close to one another at the bar. Well, even if Armitage did spot her with someone else, he couldn’t get too indignant now, could he? 

“In a booth?” Rey commented. “How important.” 

“My mother is. The daughter of a senator. My father’s background is a bit murkier.” 

Rey smiled. “Just like me,” she said. “Name?” 

“Leia Organa-Solo and Han Solo,” he answered. 

“No, I actually meant yours—” 

“Ben!” said a loud but feminine voice. A small woman with a complicated updo was now standing up from a booth table right in front of them. Next to her was a man with greying hair, dressed a little casually for the venue. “You’ve been gone for ages. But ah, I see, Lorena finally made it. What good luck. We just ordered some aperitifs, my dear. So nice to meet you, Lorena. Let me get a look at you.” 

“Get as close as you want,” Rey said, smiling. “But you can go ahead and call me, Rey. All my friends do.” 

“Rey? Oh, how charming,” Leia said. “And you must call me Leia. None of this Mrs. Organa-Solo nonsense. I would have just stayed Leia Organa if it wasn’t for my mother.” 

“And your husband’s polite request,” Han said, nodding towards Rey in greeting. 

“Like I said, if it wasn’t for my mother,” Leia continued. “Now sit down and tell me all about yourself.” 

While Rey was a great liar, she also knew that the best lies had some threads of truth in them. So she told them she was an orphan who had never known her parents, a truth which worked well since then there had to be no detailing of her parents’ names or professions. 

She started in on her job then, a lowly secretary at an architecture firm. 

“Well, that must be how you and Ben met, then? Oh how funny, I never thought Ben’s career would ever lead him to meeting someone,” Leia said. Since they’d sat down she’d done most of the talking. “I wanted him to go into politics like my father, but he refused me.” 

Ben shifted uncomfortably looking less like the confident man in the coat room and more like the son of a ball-busting mother. Rey decided she liked him all the better for it. 

‘Oh, well,” Leia continued. “I guess it all works out if that’s how he met you. Ben, why didn’t you say you met her through work?” 

Ben was still swallowing his drink so Rey stepped in. 

“Opposing firms,” she answered. “We thought it’d be best to keep it quiet.” 

In a coincidence that made Rey’s head turn, what she said turned out to be true. Ben worked for an architect named Snoke, who was known as a bit ruthless when it came to bidding on projects. Rey worked at Calrissian & Associates, a firm that mostly worked on schools and hospitals. Now that she thought about it, the name Ben Solo did sound familiar. 

“Oh, I do wish Ben would stop working for that horrid Snoke. He works like a dog; I’m amazed we were even able to see him tonight,” Leia leaned across the table and tugged on Ben’s right ear. “He’s always cancelling on his poor old parents.” 

Ben snorted. “Mother, you’re out on the town almost every night, and Dad is in his drink just as much. You don’t need me to have fun.” 

Leia swatted his hand. “Benjamin!” 

Han just chuckled and took another swallow of whiskey as to acknowledge the statement’s truth. 

The atmosphere was playful for now, but Rey knew enough about tension to know they were skating on the edge of it. 

“So shall we order?” Rey asked. “I’m so hungry I’d like to ask for a whole horse, skewered and barbecued. Not to share.” 

Han seemed amused, but Leia wrinkled her nose. 

“Why you’re all skin and bones, dear,” she said. “No wonder you’re hungry. Does Benjamin not take enough care of you?” 

“Oh, I’ll take care of her,” Ben said, staring right at her. 

Rey swallowed and took a sip of her drink. “It’s rather hot in here, isn’t it?” 

Like his mother, Ben had brown eyes. But they weren’t warm like Leia's, rather they were both darker and hotter, as if there was a fire burning directly behind them. 

The rest of the evening continued mostly in the same. Leia talking, Rey occasionally getting to respond, Ben and Han staying mostly silent. 

“Dessert?” Leia proposed. “Oh, that’s right, I forgot Ben doesn’t like sweet things.” 

“Rey does, though,” Ben said, thrusting a menu her way. 

“I do?” Rey asked. She did, but she didn’t want to push her luck by extending the evening. She could see that Leia was grating on his nerves. She still wanted her money at the end of this. 

“Anyone could tell from the way you’ve been eyeing that woman’s sundae,” he said, gesturing to the table next to them. 

“How do you know I wasn’t admiring her necklace?” Rey asked. 

“Well, I’d get that for you, too, but it’d probably take the kitchen a longer time to whip up,” he said. 

Rey smiled. For a moment, she wished Han and Leia were gone from the table. That it was just her and Ben here. 

Han yanked the menu from her grasp as the waiter approached. “Two sundaes,” he told the waiter. “One for me and my wife to share, and one for those two.” He gestured to Ben and Rey. 

Ben slid out of his chair and into the circular booth then, right next to Rey. Not touching her but leaning in as if the sundae was already there. 

In a low voice so Han couldn’t hear, she said to him, “I don’t get my own sundae?” 

“I’ll order an extra one when they leave that you can take home with you,” Ben whispered.

“Deal,” she said. 

“How is it that you work for my competitor, but I’ve never crossed paths with you?” Ben said, his voice still low. 

“I’m a bit too low down to take notice of,” Rey said. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” At this point, talking so quietly, their faces were only a few inches apart.

The sundae interrupted them. 

Though there was the promise of another one, Rey still ate the majority of it with Ben sitting back to let her. Both Leia and Han were a bit stunned by how fast she wolfed it down. 

They took it in stride though, and Leia commented on how they must have Rey over for dinner soon, and how about next Thursday or next Friday?

“And really darling you mustn’t let Ben keep you hidden,” Leia said. “Forget all the terrible things he says about us and force him to come to visit more often, won’t you?” She continued imploring Rey for the promise of more visits as Han paid the bill and they headed out into the night. 

(The coat check girl had never returned to her post, it seemed, so Rey snuck in and grabbed all four for them.) 

Han whistled for a taxi as they got outside. 

“And I’ll just have to show you just the darndest photos of Ben as a baby,” Leia continued. “His ears! Really, still such a cute boy. Your own children will be fine, I’m sure. Oops!” 

She smiled, looking pleased with herself as Han ushered her into the cab. For his own goodbye, Han simply tilted his hat at both of them. 

“Well, well,” Rey said, now that it was just her and Ben on the sidewalk. 

“Not that it matters particularly,” Ben said. “But what did you think of them?” 

“Quite remarkable. Your mother talks without saying much of anything; your father never talks but says quite a bit. I liked them both exceedingly,” Rey said. 

Ben chuckled. He pulled out a cigarette and offered one to Rey, which she took. 

“Well,” she said, inhaling. “I believe the debt must be paid now. I accept cold, hard cash and only that.” 

Ben grinned down at her. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t forget.” He pulled out more money than it seemed possible to hold in one pocket. 

“Oh, I might forget a name or a face occasionally, but never one of these,” she held one of the bills up. 

“And what about me, then?” Ben asked. “Are you going to forget about me after tonight?” 

“That depends,” Rey said. 

“On?” 

“On how quickly I blow through this money.” 

Ben let out a little puff of air that danced in the cold dark, an almost laugh. 

“You have a one-track mind, kid,” he said. “Your real name is Rey?” 

“Rey Johnson,” she said. “Made it up myself when I was five.” 

“One of these days, I’m gonna show up to the Calrissian office and buy you lunch just to embarrass you in front of your co-workers.” 

“You think I’m afraid to be seen fraternizing with the enemy?” 

“Well, aren’t you?” 

“Not as much as I’m in need of a few good lunches.” 

Ben frowned a little at this and stared at her for a second. Rey took a step in towards him. He stepped back. 

“I better get you home, kid,” he said, almost sadly. “Mind if I walk you there?” 

“You’d be better off getting me a cab,” Rey said. “There’s one other coincidence between me and your little ‘Lo-rey-na.’” 

“And that is?” 

“I also live on Long Island.” 

  
  


Rey fell asleep in the cab ride home (that Ben had paid for and placed her in with a simple “Goodnight, Rey.”), and she’d woken up only for a few minutes to unlock her apartment and get into bed. 

The next day now, she was sitting with a headache at work. A mixture of heavy food, alcohol, and sugar did not make for a pleasant morning. Batting off Rose’s questions about the night before over breakfast hadn’t helped any matters. 

“Delivery,” a courier walked into the office. 

“Yes, I’ll sign for it,” Rey said, standing. 

“Name?” 

“Rey Johnson.” 

“It’s for you, ma’am,” the courier said. Rey, surprised, thanked him, and he left. 

The package, a beautifully wrapped box, opened up to reveal a coat. A very expensive wool coat. Nothing like the flimsy one Rey had worn last night. It was a dark gray—almost black—not unlike the one Mr. Ben Solo had been wearing last night. 

Rey hugged the coat to herself and spotted a note at the bottom of the box. A small one, unsigned. On it was a tiny outline drawing of a sundae and one written line. 

“I still owe you one,” Rey read aloud. 

“Hmmph,” she said. “That he does.” 

She put the coat on and hugged it to herself, as she sat back down to work, smiling and humming all the while. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
